And all through this book, there are great portraits, but what to observe is in this third chapter, when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to do some teaching, and of course he could teach on anything, the divine teacher focuses on one thing, the subject matter, the new birth. And he teaches that ye must be born again. And there was a preacher who used to say that all the time, you must be born again. And somebody asked him, why do you say that all the time? He said, because you must be born again. By the way, that's a very powerful five simple words. Paul once said, I'd rather speak five words with the understanding than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue. Ye must be born again. Five powerful words, exceedingly powerful. We were driving down the street the other day, and there was a sign, ye must be born again. I said to my wife, did you see that sign? Yes. I said, did that make you mad? She said, no. I said, why not? She said, because I'm born again. Precisely. And do you know what it does to people who aren't born again? It troubles them. It troubles them. Now, when I was a doctor back in the old days, one of the things anesthesiologists have to do, in addition to putting people to sleep, which I'm very good at. I'm a great pastor now. I do the same. Sorry. But you had to start IVs. And so I had to start IVs. And usually, you know, the person's lying on a gurney, and you bend over, and you take their arm, and you're trying to find a nice vein, and you poke around and stab them. You get good eventually, but nonetheless, you're starting this IV, and they're nervous, and I had just gotten born again, and somebody gave me this tract that someone had printed with this guy telling this one guy, you must be born again, and he's looking at him like this. But right at the top were the five words, you must be born again. And I could slip it right into my pockets of the greens that I was wearing, and when I would start the IV, the only thing looking at them was those five words. And they would just sit at me. Now, I wasn't trying to be mean, but I just wanted the Holy Spirit, the opportunity to work with those people's heart. It's very powerful, those five words. You see, because I was having a discussion with a devout, devout Catholic woman who's, how many brothers were priests? One or two? Two brothers were priests and a sister was a nun. and a very devout Catholic woman putting all her faith in the Catholic Church. And she had just come back from a retreat, and she was sitting at my house telling me about the retreat and what they did at their Catholic retreat. And I just listened politely. I would be swift to hear and slow to speak. And then when she was done, I said, that's very interesting, but the Bible says you must be born again. That's all I said to her. She said, that's just your interpretation. But I hadn't interpreted anything. I had merely spoken the five words. The Holy Spirit interpreted it for her in her mind, who said, you're not born again, your religion's not working. See, the Holy Spirit will work with those words. So Jesus here, he has this opportunity here to teach in the third chapter, and he gets right to the essential teaching of the new birth. That's his subject matter. Now, in this chapter, he will use a number of illustrations to look at this birth. He'll look at it like a physical birth. He'll liken it to the wind. He'll liken it to a serpent in the wilderness. He'll liken it to light and darkness. And we'll look at those illustrations as we go through it. But ultimately what he's showing in this chapter is verses 1 through 5, the necessity of the new birth. And then verses 6 through 13, the nature of the new birth, and then finally verses 14 through 21, the very basis of the new birth and how it comes forth. He gets into the necessity of it in the first few verses. Now, although the chapter begins at verse one, in truth, if you back up a few verses, it gets a running start in the second chapter in verse 23. And there's the paragraph marking there. And it says in chapter two, Verse 23, now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did, but Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. And the reason I had you read those first few verses is one of the things that we're going to see about the new birth is the new birth is something that is required for man. And because the word man and men in that passage I read is found eight times. So he's focusing. In other words, the new birth is required for adults beyond the age of accountability. It is not required for children under the age of accountability. He said man. He didn't say one. He didn't say a person. He didn't say you. He said man. And he focuses on that. I want you to understand that. Men and women above the age of accountability need to be born again. Children do not. Children are saved, I could take you through a number of passages, I don't know that I'll have the time to teach it with you, but we can do question and answer if you want, in many different places, but they're not saved perhaps in the way you think. I mean, they're saved in the sense that they're saved from destruction and perdition. When we get to Sunday's teaching, what probably happens to them most likely is they're resurrected in the millennium as children and they're fatherless, and we're going to get to adopt them and take care of them. That's why there's so many admonitions taking care of children. And they're going to get a chance to grow up and make their own decision for or against Christ. And that's because God given them a second chance. But the point is, they don't need to be born again. They'll get a chance to be born again in the millennium if they so choose, because God wants to give them fair opportunity. But for those above the age of accountability, this is your shot. You must be born again, is what he's saying. Now, he's talking about the necessity of this birth, that it's needed to, he says in verse three, it's needed to see the kingdom of God. He says in verse five, it is needed to enter into the kingdom of God. Again, the kingdom of God is, Help me, Lord. The kingdom of God is, in the Bible, I don't know if they ever taught you dispensations, and there are seven dispensations. Well, there are really nine, but there are seven from Genesis 2 to Revelation 20, and those are the seven ones you're classically taught, and they go from innocence all the way through to the millennium. Sometime we've got a blackboard. They're based on the candelabra, the candlestick. and they're connected, and one is connected to seven, two is connected to six, three is connected to five, they're all held together by four. But those dispensations from the garden to the millennium, that millennium is the kingdom of heaven. Before the garden in Genesis 1 was the dispensation of angels, and after the millennium in Revelation 21 is the kingdom of God, that's the new Jerusalem. And sometime I can draw you portraits of what it looked like before and after, That's neither here nor there, but the point is this. You're not entering the new Jerusalem without the new birth. You can get in the millennium without the new birth. There's gonna be lots of folks getting into the millennium without the new birth, and there's gonna be many gonna be destroyed at the end of the millennium without the new birth. But to enter the kingdom of God or see the kingdom of God, you're going to require the new birth. That's eternity, folks. The new Jerusalem's eternity. The millennium is a good deal. It's 1,000 years, but it ends eventually. The new Jerusalem's eternity. And so he's trying to explain this important truth to Nicodemus, who's a ruler of the Jews. It's necessary to see the kingdom of God. It's necessary to enter the kingdom of God. What he's going to begin to do here is explain the nature of this particular birth and the way it comes about. It is not a physical birth, but he's going to liken it to a physical birth. And here's a wonderful truth you'll begin to learn, is that the Lord in his creative power, and when he began creating in Genesis 1, he made everything to reflect the spiritual. So if you begin to study this, anything on earth, any discipline you choose, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, you'll begin to see pictures of what God has up in heaven there. And it's a real blessing. I spent three semesters teaching the Bible and science at an institute not far from us, and it was just wonderful. And I went through, never saw these things before until I got saved. But there are portraits of salvation in even the way the body's constructed. There are portraits of God's work in chemistry, in physics. I went through all the equations. Most equations are three variables. I don't know if you're aware of that. V equals IR, F equals MA, equals MC squared. By the way, that's in the Bible. That's in Job 32. but there's a lot of science packed in the Bible. And God makes these portraits and he puts things in the physical to help us to see the spiritual. So looking at a physical birth here, the way this thing works is you look at the first birth. In order to have the first birth, going down to verse five, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except the man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." What does he mean? Well, one of the forms that the Bible uses often is an ABAB form. And so in verse 5, water, A, and of the spirit, B, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. that which is born of the flesh, A, lining up to the A from the verse above, is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit, B, is spirit, lining up up above. So the first thing he's trying to say is, in terms of the physical birth, we understand that the physical birth requires water to be born physically. Now, all through the scriptures, going all the way back to Genesis chapter 1, Genesis 1 verse 20, and I'll just read it to you quickly. Water is required for a physical birth no matter what type of creature you are. And if you've ever worked in a delivery suite, one of the things that happens before the baby comes forth is they break the waters of the amniotic fluid so the baby can come down. So waters are there. So historically, literally, he's talking about water of a physical birth. However, as you know, God does everything in threes. Every passage has three interpretations to it. There's a literal, historical, there's a spiritual, practical, devotional, and then there's a doctrinal. So I'm going to stop and show you the spiritual for the doctrinal is for question and answer, because that has to do with our new bodies entering the kingdom of God. But let's look at the practical here because we're trying to deal with people on planet Earth. From the spiritual standpoint, The water that is required to bring forth the new birth is the water of the word of God, spiritually. And so what's going to require for the new birth is water and the spirit. Now, again, looking at a regular birth, in order for a child to be conceived and born, two things are needed, a mother and a father. And what he's showing you here is two things are going to be required for the new birth. I need water and the spirit. I need the word of God and the spirit of God. I cannot get someone born again if those things are separated. That's why it's so important for you and me to go out and speak the words of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. God didn't give us just a message. He gave us words. And the words are essentially, they're vital, important. As a matter of fact, if you go to 1 Peter 1, and if you believe the Bible for what it says, and I kind of do. He says in verse 23, and he had said in James, that receive the engrafted word, which is able to save the soul, and then he verilies it in 1 Peter 123, he says, being born again, not of corruptible seed. I wonder why he puts that a positive in there. You know what a positive is? It's a phrase between two commas. You could throw that thing out. I mean, you could read the phrase being born again of incorruptible seed by the word of God, but he had to put that a positive in there. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And here's what God's saying, is that in order to bring forth this new birth, I think of it sometimes like a woman has the ovum, and then the seed of the sperm has to penetrate the ovum. Okay, a human being's got a heart, and that heart has to be penetrated by God's seed for there to be the conception and the birth. And God's saying it has to be my seed, incorruptible seed. So, just to help you from the time where we are now, that means it has to be King James Bible. That means you don't get born again with an NIV. And I'm someone that got born again in an NIV church. But as I went back retrospectively and thought about how it happened, God did not use that NIV to make me born again. God is faithful. God will not sow his vineyard with diverse seed, lest the fruit be defiled thereof. God obeys his own word. Pastors don't. Thank goodness he's faithful and true. We're not entirely. But nonetheless, so here's the point. When I was at this NIV church, I didn't know anything at the time. I was coming home from a one o'clock in the morning surgery in January of 93, and I had been an agnostic atheist, but my wife had gotten saved and was running around the church messing my Sundays up, just destroying me. Sunday's my day off, what are you doing? And so I just stopped one night and I said, are you really up there? I didn't even know if there was a God. Are you really up there? And so he guided me into Bible studies at this particular church where my wife was, and they were using an NIV. And the pastor was about 39 years old, and his father had led him to the Lord, and his father was an old-time preacher with a King James Bible. The pastor was a young kid that went off to a new seminary and had an NIV, and that's what he used. But here's what happened. Every time when that pastor would stray from his notes and preach, He'd say a verse extemporaneously, and guess what came out? King James Bible. Because that word was hidden in his heart by the Holy Spirit from his father's preaching. And so what God was waiting was for when he saw me sitting in that audience there, He made sure that real seed was hitting my heart so He could bring forth a new birth. I just want to show you how essential this is. The Word of God is vital and that seed must happen. That is the water that needs to be mingled with the Spirit of God. Now that alone is not going to be sufficient for the new birth. I'm not a Calvinist. Just if you throw the word out there and the Spirit comes in, someone's going to get saved. Calvin I pray for his own sake that he got saved. If he was saved, he was a baby. He was drooling. He doesn't know what he's talking about most of the time. By the way, the reason you know Calvin doesn't know what he's talking about, just quickly, he got supposedly saved at 25. He wrote the Institutes at 27. That means he was two years old in the Lord. God doesn't suffer novices to teach or to write doctrinal books. So we already know what's in those books. The Institute isn't worth looking at. But the point is this. Although Jesus said you need water and the Spirit, although those are the necessary ingredients, that's not sufficient to bring forth a new birth. One other thing will be needed, and he'll talk about it later in the chapter, has to be mingled with faith. So, you know, the believer has to meditate and think upon what he's heard and either receive it or reject it. The conviction will come and he has to make the choice either to receive or to reject. God believes in free will. Most pastors have a cover charge, but for God it's free will. And it's just very nice, and we do appreciate that. But here, so what we're seeing is, in order for the new birth, the new birth, just as a physical birth needs two components, the new birth, the spiritual birth, needs two components. It needs the Word of God and the Spirit of God. And all we're asked to do, he used water instead of seed here, so, is be water boys and carry the water for him. That's all. You don't have to be the quarterback on the team. You can just be the water. It's okay to be the water boy. That's perfectly fine, God says. Just carry the water and bring it forth, though the spirit has something to work with. And then it's between that person and God, and you'll see in the next chapter when Jesus does the soul winning, it's not up to us to... How they say, we're supposed to lead someone to Christ. That's not true. We're not supposed to bring someone to Christ. We're supposed to bring Christ and his word to someone and then let them work it out. You're not responsible for the results. Just bring the water, just be the water. Very, very simple. Now, he's talking, it's going to be when this does occur, it's going to be a birth. Now, think again about a human birth. let's say the mommy and the daddy get together one night in December. The baby isn't born for a while. It takes time for the conception process to occur. So you're not likely to get anyone saved quickly. He'll show you that in chapter four. So running around with the Romans road, I mean, that's all fine and dandy. What they really need is just the water of the word and let the spirit Work with them. That's all that's required of you. There's not pressure on you to win someone to Christ. He that winneth souls is wise. The wise one is the Lord Jesus Christ. He searches the hearts and knows when they're ready to be won. He takes care of all that business. We just go forth simply and bring the water so the spirit can work and God can do the conceiving process. Some people are very simple. Usually the younger, the simpler, they can get it quicker. The older, the longer it takes. but just keep bringing the water so the spirit can work. But a birth, when you think about a birth, what really happens here is a birth is from the word, to be born comes from, it's a past tense of the word to bear, to move, to carry forth. And what's happening in a birth physically is you're carrying forth something that was in a womb and moving it forth into the world. You're moving it from one place to another. The new birth does the same type of thing. It takes a soul that's trapped inside, instead of the womb, inside the tomb of a dying body and moves it into the kingdom of God. Now that's not visible. That's invisible. That's something God sees. But that's what's happening in the new birth. Something miraculous is taking place that only God can see at this point in time. One day we'll see it when he opens the gates of the New Jerusalem and they're there with us. But God is showing how he does this thing. It's a spiritual movement rather than a physical movement. It's a significant spiritual movement. And one of the ways for those of us that want to be fruit inspectors, and I'm not particularly good at that, but one of the ways you'll tell if it really, truly, honestly occurred, if that new birth occurred, is newborn babes desire the word. They desire the word. I remember before my salvation, you know, always being one of those heady reading kind of guys. I remember I was Catholic. I'm Italian, so I grew up Catholic. I was in church seven days a week at Catholic school, all that type of stuff. I didn't know anything about God, didn't know anything about the Bible, but I knew how to work out. I could genuflect 20 times a day. I could do this. I was very good with calisthenics, but I didn't know the Lord. And for all these years, I didn't know anything about truth. And then I read a lot of books. And I remember I made my first communion at seven or eight years old. And we got all this communion money. Wow, this is great. When are we going to do this? And my mom says, I'm putting most of it in the bank. She says, but you can have a little money to spend how you want. And I was like eight years old, and I said, great, there's a bookstore downtown. Will you take me so I can buy some books? I bought some books on astronomy and paleontology. I used to love to read. I was always reading and constantly reading textbooks from the time I was little, but I never looked at this book. I had no interest in the Bible, none whatsoever. I thought it was a mythology book, and I wasn't interested in mythology or novels. But when someone brought me to those Bible studies, and God began to draw, and he's faithful, he'll do the drawing process, just drawing so much to turn your eyes onto the truth, now make a decision whether you want it or not. And after about eight or nine months, I finally said, yeah, this is a good deal, I'll take it. And I got saved late in 93. And at that point, from that point forward, all I wanted was this book. I mean, all of a sudden, the medical books weren't that interesting to me anymore. I wanted this book, and I started reading this book. And so one of the evidences of the new birth is a desire for the Word of God. And so that's why you don't want to use a program trying to so-called be a soul winner and go out and coerce someone or talk someone into saying a prayer. That's not going to work. I remember there's a young Christian I worked with years ago. Thankfully, he did get saved at the age of about 21. But when he was 18, he visited the county fair. And some Christians had a booth at the county fair, and they were trying to do soul winning like that. And they grabbed this young kid, a nice boy, very polite, and they kept working with him. And all he wanted to do was go get cotton candy and ride a roller coaster. And they wouldn't let him go, and they wouldn't let him go, and they wouldn't. After 45 minutes, it was like, he said, okay, what do you want me to do? And they said, look, would you just get down on your knees and say this prayer? And so he got down on the knees, and he said the prayer, and then they let him go. They gave him a few booklets, and they were smiling and shaking hands, and he left. And his point was, the only way he could get away from those jerks was if I got on my knees and said the prayer. And that's how I got rid of him. Now, he wasn't born again. So who's gonna learn a lesson there? Well, I hope the people at the booth are learning their lesson. You can't talk someone into God. All you can do is present the truth to them. Look, folks, here's the problem, what I learned. A lot of people go, hello, I'm from so-and-so church. If you die today, do you know for sure if you go to heaven? Now look, man, heaven isn't the issue. Heaven is not the issue. If I talk to any lost man, of course he'd rather go to heaven than hell. But he has no concept what heaven is about. He's utterly confused. He thinks it's a bowling alley with some beer and a couple of women. He doesn't know what heaven is about. I had one guy arguing with me, is there golf in heaven? Is there golf in... I said, look, there's no golf in hell. What are we talking? It's not... But that's not the issue. The issue isn't heaven or hell, the issue is God. Do you want to know God? Now if you want to know God, you get heaven as a byproduct. But heaven is the byproduct, it's not the prime product. The prime product is the Lord God. And so our job is to present the truth about God as in this book. is about the Messiah. How do I know? He said so. In the volume of the book, it's written about me. It's not about a kingdom. It's not about heaven. It's about the Messiah. Now, all those other things go with it. But the point is, do you want to know God? That begins the relationship. It continues the relationship. The Chinese got a saying. Let me think if I can get it straight again. Wise men talk about ideas. Average men talk about things. Foolish and stupid men talk about people. Chinese saying. Let me take that and we'll kick it into the Christian realm. Wise men talk about ideas. Wise Christian men talk about God. Average men talk about things. Average Christian minds talk about the things of God. Small minds talk about people. Small Christian minds talk about the people of God. Okay, can we just carry it over? So the thing is, it's about God. Are you interested in knowing the Lord? Are you interested in drawing close to the Lord? All those other things will be given to you as a bonus. So the truth about what we're attempting to do in bringing forth a new birth is we're bringing forth the water of the word that tells them about the God of the Bible and his son, Jesus Christ. The doctrine of Christ, which gives them both the father and the son, the father and the son, not heaven, not crowns, not cities in the millennium, the father and the son. I'll talk about this more on Sunday when I get to the third thing, because, anyways, let's get back to where we are. So here's the thing. He talks about the necessity of the new birth, and he's talking about the nature of the new birth. The nature of the new birth, verse six, it is spiritual. See, the new birth is real. It's a real thing. People seem to think because it's spiritual, it's not real. Look, it's spiritual, but it's real. It's a reality. And it's mysterious. That's why he says in verse eight, the wind bloweth where it listeth. And thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So first a use of physical. So is everyone that's born of the Spirit. So he'll take a physical truth and take it to a spiritual level. First look at the physical truth, the wind. If you study meteorology, and I do a little bit, it's the most perplexing thing. I mean, for example, in the northern United States, the prevailing winds are westerly. They're westerly winds. That means they start in the west and they blow toward the east. So I've often wondered, you know, I'll say to my wife, I'll get a satellite view of what's going on and we're over there in Buffalo and I'll take a look at what's happening over in Illinois and Ohio and Indiana and just kind of assume it's going to blow in our direction, but it doesn't. Sometimes it goes south, sometimes it goes north, sometimes it circles around counterclockwise. What's going on here? I don't understand. The wind blows where it listeth. It's just something God set there and he's showing the Spirit is the same way. The Spirit of God must be mingled with the water, but there are times when the Spirit of God just isn't interested. Now, I don't know that and you don't know that. Our job is to be the water boy. God will determine when and where the Spirit will move. with the spirits. God looks inside of a heart and he sees a spirit that lusts envy and that's so angry and he says, I can't birth that thing. I can't birth it. And you could pour all the water you want on it, it's not gonna happen. The Lord's standing back for a moment in time. The Lord knows in his faithfulness when he will visit and draw every individual on this planet and you will see that the Lord, one day at the White Throne Judgment, you will see, and that's another interesting thing, how he's gonna pull that off. He's taping everything, but not from the outside, from the inside. And I can teach you that maybe in question and answer. But what's going to happen is he's going to show you that every individual had two honest shots at salvation. And then after the second one, the Lord, by his own book, can reject him as a heretic. The Lord can reject him as a reprobate. Now, thankfully, he's very kind, and consider it, and he'll revisit someone if you stand in the gap and pray for them. If you stand in the gap and pray for them, he may go back a third and fourth and fifth time. But judicially, he's got to give them two visits. But he kind of knows when and when not to. based on what's going on in their life. There are times we're just not gonna get saved. We still pour the water, but the wind bloweth where it listeth. That's where our prayer will hopefully blow a favorable wind in their direction. But I'm just trying to show you, look, every time a man sleeps with a woman, a baby don't come forth. All right? Reality. So these are portraits God's trying to put in the way this new birth lines up with the physical birth. Of course, Nicodemus in his confusion, how can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things. That's a gentle rebuke there. Let us bring it forth into our day. Art thou a born again Christian who sat in a church for five years and knowest not these things? Okay, now look, look, look, if you don't, sometimes it's understood we just haven't been taught properly. Our leaders do cause us to err. Sometimes we're taught doctrines of men rather than the doctrine of God. We're very good at that. We like our hobby horses. I used to have one when I was a kid. I'd just ride that thing. It never went anywhere, but it was fun. It was on springs. And we like to get on these things, and we'll talk about that more on Sunday. That's why we want to focus on the doctrine of Christ. One other thing, just by way of thought. You remember this book that God made has to march through time. It has to go from Genesis 2 all the way through, let's say, Revelation 20. And then I'm not sure what he'll do with it after then, but at this point I know he's been using it. And as that book moves through time, think of it like a light. And what's over your head at that time, that's the doctrine you need to know. So right now the doctrine you and I need to know is the doctrine of Christ. Back here was the doctrine of the Garden of Innocence. I'm not there. Anything outside my dispensation gets a little dark and distanced. There's no point fighting over things that are outside our dispensation. That's where most of the fights happen in Baptist churches. What do you think about the sons of God? Who cares? What do you think about how many people are on toes on the beast? Who cares? What do you think 666 means? I don't know. It's outside my dispensation. Look, I really... I mean, I got some thoughts on it. The best I can say is, well, it appears this way to me. That's what I see through the glass, starkly. One thing I have perfect light on is the doctrine of Christ. And that's where we need to focus our strength. We get a little too much in our own spirit and doctrines of men, and we divide into all kinds of goofy things, and the Lord must look at us and go, what are they doing down there? Didn't I make it simple for them? So getting back to this, the doctrine of Christ is what we're focusing on. And he might ask us this, you folks don't understand the new birth? And this is what I'm putting in your hands to take forth and to tell these people about. This is very important. This is something that's real. It's a reality. Verily, verily, verse 11, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. And here's the fullness of the Godhead speaking here about the importance of it. Verse 12, if I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? What he's saying is, I've lined everything up perfectly. I've made the creation in such a way that just like the legs of a good man line up side by side, and the kneecap lines to kneecap, and ankle to ankle, and hip to hip, this is the way the physical and the spiritual line up so you can get an understanding. Now, you know, a parable in the mouth of a fool is like a leg of a lame that doesn't line up, it limps, And you know when you've heard bad teaching from the Bible, but good teaching lines up. And he said, this is the way I've set these things up. And I'm showing you, this is real. It's as real as the earth that you're walking on right here. It's earthly. The earthly things are literal. They're physical. They're real. The heavenly things are spiritual. They, too, are real. Heaven's a reality. That's another thing. Whatever. One of these days I'd like to teach you chemistry and teach you the difference between the chemistry of what our body's composed of and probably the chemical elements God's going to use in the New Jerusalem. And it's wild stuff. It's stuff the firmament's made of. And it's amazing. That allows you to walk through walls and do stuff Jesus did. That stuff is real. That's more real than what we have right now. What we have is a vapor. It's a mist. If you took the average atom with the nucleus and the neutrons and the protons and the electrons and I made the neutrons and protons the size of volleyballs, and I made the electrons the size of tennis balls. Your standard atom, the tennis ball would be about two miles away from the volleyballs here. It's mostly mist, it's mostly space, it's mostly vapor. We're made up of vaporous stuff, folks. The real stuff is what's up there. Those are compacted molecules up together. Anyway, so he's trying to teach him this. It's real. The spiritual is very real. Verse 13, No man hath ascended to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. And that's just a another verse about his deity and his omnipresence, but here's what he wants you to get in terms of the basis. I've showed you this thing is mysterious, it's spiritual, but it's real, and the basis of it is verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And, of course, the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness. It was a picture at a time of death, and the Son of Man was going to be lifted up. The basis for the new birth is going to be the death of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ had to die. No death of Christ, no possibility for the new birth for anybody. That's the basis. Number one, Christ had to die. Number two, Verse 15, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. Christ had to die, that's his part. The sinner must believe. Now, I believed. I hope you believed. But if you did, you did it from deep inside the reins of your heart. something deep inside of you. Belief is such a deep, mysterious, spiritual, amazing, miraculous thing. Sometimes you even begin to wonder, gee, I wonder why I believe. Was I chosen or something? No, not really. I mean, you were chosen to hear the gospel, but so is everybody. Actually, many are called, everybody's called, as there are many on planet Earth. But you were chosen because then you believed. You believed. There was a work. There's only one work you're required to do to be saved. It's the work of faith, Thessalonians 1. These are the works of God. This is the work of God, that you believe on him, whom he hath sent. See, the Calvinist thinks there are works. And that's a very interesting study in your Bible, the difference between words that have an S end to them. So in the beginning, God created the heaven. Now there's heavens. There's one gospel. Now there's many gospels. There's only one work. When he gets started, the serpent, the S on the end of a word, things go corrupted. Calvin, confused, thinking it's works. It's not works. It's one work of faith that you do in your heart. That work of faith where Jesus knocks on the door and you open it. If any man hear my voice and open, that's your work of faith. Come in, son of God, enter into my heart. That's your work of faith, but that's your work. That's the hearer's work. Yes, he's required to do one work for God, believe on the son, open the door and allow the son to come in and begin his cleansing work. And so that's it, that he must believe, the sinner must believe. Now, here's where we get frustrated because we talk to our loved ones, we talk to our friends, we talk to our coworkers and we, want them to believe and we don't understand why they don't believe and the reality is that's their choice. It is their choice. The Bible's got a book of numbers. God has got numbers all through his book. I was doing a study one day and the Lord showed me, it took about three years for him to show me this, but Most people will not believe. Broad is the way and many are on it. And he even shows you the numbers as to how many won't believe. He's got the percentages laid out in the book. He shows you how many angels rebelled. He shows you how many Jews get saved. And he shows you how many Gentiles get saved. And if you want, I can do the math with you. I need a whiteboard for me sometime. And I'll show you the verses and we'll do the math. And it's a simple calculation, A over A plus B times 100. And I'll lay it out for you. But the fact of the matter is, most people aren't gonna believe. But that doesn't mean we stop giving the water out. We continue to pour the water out. The rivers of living water, we pour it out. And then what we do is we pray that the spirit will somehow make a change in their life that will bring them to a point where they're willing to call, Lord, save me. And that's all we can do, folks. We can't do anything else. Let me put it this way. In this book, in chapter 5, I was showing you the portraits of Jesus Christ. In the 4th chapter, He's the great soul winner. In the 5th chapter, He's the great physician. In the 6th chapter, He's the bread of life. In the 7th chapter, He's the water of life. In the 8th and 9th chapter, He's the light of the world. But in that one chapter, He's the great physician. He heals this man. Jesus Christ, and maybe His Father, but He and the Father are one, are the only licensed obstetricians in the universe to deliver the new birth. We're not. When I used to work in the OB wards, I was just a lowly anesthesiologist. My job was to put the epidural in, make sure the mom was comfortable, and if the baby came out and had difficulty breathing, I'm an airway expert. My job was to make sure the baby could breathe. But it wasn't my job to deliver the baby. It wasn't the circulating nurse. It wasn't the scrub nurse. It wasn't anyone else. Our job was to step aside and let the obstetrician do the delivery. And it's the same when it comes to the new birth for souls. We bring the water, we set things up, and we step aside, and we let the great physician come in and do the work. That's the job. Please, folks, there's no pressure on us except to carry the water. And I know we can do that. And so he's laying, I'm running long, and you wanna hear some real preaching, so I'll stop. But the point is, the new birth, when he had an opportunity to teach, This is what he focused on, the great subject. It's needed. It's absolutely necessary. It's real, and the basis of it is very simple for us. It's the simplicity of carrying the word of God. Now, you've got to carry God's book. Take the words of the King James Bible. I can show you. I asked God one day, I mean, God showed me the King James Bible was his word in an NIV church. They asked me to teach the book of Genesis, so I went out and bought seven things that were called Bibles, because I noticed everybody had different Bibles. I didn't know what was going on. And every week, I would prepare like I was going to teach at the medical school. I'd do 20 hours of preparation for one hour of teaching. And I'd draw all kinds of notes. And I got 700 pages of notes for my Genesis teaching, all handwritten in three colors. But every week, I would observe that the words only lined up in the King James Bible. They broke down on all the other. I didn't know what was going on. I would ask my wife. I said, honey, you're saved longer than I am. Why is it that the words only line up in the King James Bible? And she said, maybe those translators were more spirit-filled. And she says, maybe those translators were more spirit-filled. So I said, OK, that sounds good enough to me. And I walked back to my den. to continue my preparation and then the Lord kind of woke me up and he said, hey son, you're not a teenager, you're 40 years old, you've worked in the insurance business, you've worked as a professional musician, you've worked as a doctor, you've done research, you've published, and everything you've worked in, son, you found there are crooked people. There's crooked people in my church messing with my word. Oh my goodness, and when it was a stunning revelation, And then, you know, I learned the King James Bible is the word of God. Now, you remember when Moses met God on the backside of the desert, and he said, what is your name? He said, I am. Let's see, King James, the first vowel is an I, the next one is an A, and the letter that follows is an M. Look at your King James Bible, I am, it's hidden right there in the word. I asked him, I said, Lord, if this is your book, Because I said, can you show me that it's your book from inside the book? I didn't know anything about Hebrew, Greek, or comparative evidence. I learned all that stuff a couple of years later. Somebody told me about a guy named Gip, a guy named Ruckman. So yeah, sure, sure, that sounds plausible. I'm glad someone else knows. But I said, can you show me from inside the book? And I can show you all kinds of hidden things. 1611 is all in through that book. Didn't we do some of those studies here last time I was here? Yeah. That's God's book. He codified it inside there. That's his book, and I've got about seven hours of teaching on it. So you want to take his water, and you want to put that forth so that God can do his work. He does his part, which is the big part. We do our little part, and step aside and let the obstetrician do his work on the new birth. Any questions on what I talked about? Good. Let's hear some real preaching.